


The World Don't Stop (It's On Again)

by AngeNoir



Series: Write-Away Giveaway 2 Fills [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 17:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1826980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's used to people - reporters, politicians, internet blogs - deriding him for his faults, because he is less than the hero ideal that came before him. Because he is less than Captain America.</p>
<p>Steve's used to people asking if he's fine, and he's gotten pretty good at lying. He's Captain America, isn't he?</p>
<p>Between the two of them, they know they never became heroes for what people said about them. And that will be enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Don't Stop (It's On Again)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [chiazu](http://chiazu.tumblr.com). I'm so sorry for how late this is.
> 
> Prompt is as follows:
> 
> _pairing is Stony and I would love a little fic based off these lyrics from It's On Again: 'I am a lonely hero, tryin' to fight my battles Life likes to blow the cold wind, sometimes it freezes my shadow In the midst of all this darkness, I sacrifice my ego There ain't no room for selfish, we do it for the people'_
> 
> Title also comes from that song (sung by Alicia Keys, and it's a beautiful song).

_I am a lonely hero,_

_Trying to fight my battles._

 

_“The truth is… I am Iron Man.”_

Tony was used to being underestimated, was used to everyone suspecting him of the worst motives possible. He was on his own most of the time, and even though he knew about property damage, was well aware of it, sometimes things happened. He did his best, he tried to have his charities pick up some of the bill, but after his stock plummeted because he was “accepting responsibility” he had to find other ways to anonymously get the money to those people who needed it. He had to find other ways to be a hero, and the easiest way was to simply… not. The world was expecting something from the old tales of Captain America, something from myth and legend, and Tony was too real, too dirty, too smudged to ever be that paragon of virtue.

So he embraced it instead. He tried to deal with his problems, but it was hard when they were literally eating him from the inside out, poisoning his blood and his heart, weakening him. He fought, of course he did, and he’d keep on fighting as long as he had strength in his body to do so. But he wouldn’t last forever. He was just one man, one person, _human_ , and even when he managed to avert certain death his father’s words mocked him, made it clear just where Tony fell in his father’s mind.

_“You will always be my greatest creation.”_

Hearing Captain America, the hero that the whole world weighed Tony against before and found him wanting, telling him the same thing with the same words and the same disgust in his face… Tony would have bared his teeth and gone for the jugular. He almost did; he certainly started. They were interrupted, though, and then they went their separate ways and Tony woke up shivering and huddling under his blankets as it grew harder and harder for Pepper to stand by his side, especially as he grew more and more paranoid. Killian didn’t make things easier, more like put a band-aid on the wound, and months later when Pepper left… Tony wasn’t even surprised.

What he was surprised at, though, was when he got a call from Steve Rogers, out of the blue.

“Hey. I’m in Russia and I need a way to get someone back into the U.S. without going through security.”

“Now you call me?” Tony grumbled, because of course he knew about the trouble that happened with HYDRA, the dismantled SHIELD, the _usage of his technology to become weapons again_. He knew all about it; hell, he headed the teams salvaging the wreckage of the helicarriers out of the Potomac.

“Yeah. I need… I need a favor. I’ll pay you back, anything you want.”

Tony sighed. “Friends don’t pay each other back. Can you get to Moscow? Or would Yakutsk be better?”

_Life likes to blow the cold wind;_

_Sometimes it freezes my shadow._

 

Steve would like to say he’s adjusting to life in the 21st century a little bit better than he really was. Having Natasha and Sam helped, a lot. He could still remember the days where giving sailors suckjobs for cash was necessary to make sure he and Bucky ate a little bit longer, where it was a treat to be able to give Bucky a science magazine that was months out of date, where their apartment rattled in the cold and he and Bucky would put on as many clothes as possible before curling onto the uncomfortable bed and wrapping around one another in hopes of keeping Steve’s sensitive lungs from flaring up in the cold.

He let Natasha or whatever SHEILD agent took care of his house do the shopping – seeing all that food… overwhelmed him, more than he cared to admit. He loved credit cards and debit cards because hearing what prices were like when he wanted to shop physically hurt some days. Technology helped but there were still times when he looked at the world around him and thought _the future was supposed to be better._

Having a goal – first, aliens, which… _aliens_? Really? – helped him move forward. Having a team… even a team that was as scattered and broken as the team he fought the Chitauri with – that helped too. Having them break apart and go their separate ways… did not help.

He began making lists. Some of these lists were innocuous; they sat in his notebook, lists of references that popped up in conversations that he could guess from context clues but wanted to clarify, lists of items he needed or tasks that had to happen, lists of mission objectives. Other lists were weaker, darker. Lists on what to do when he woke up and felt as if the world was crushing him. Lists on what to do when he didn’t recognize his face in the mirror. Lists of what to say when people asked how he was doing.

Generally speaking, he was okay. He _was_.

He was… getting there.

Having Bucky helped the most.

He didn’t always have Bucky. Even before, he could remember cold days and colder nights, when his dad yelled and his mother tried to stifle her sobs and he huddled in the tiny apartment. But when he found Bucky, when the two of them became friends, everything was suddenly alright. Bucky was a whiz, someone who really could go far if he just tried, and he loved science, math, loved the idea of putting things together. Quick money was made by dock work, construction, and it hurt Steve to see bright-eyed Bucky doing nothing with that brilliance. When Bucky threw away his brilliance for the army, well… Steve figured out, later, that Bucky most likely had been caught up in the draft, he hadn’t meant to go away. But life without Bucky was a life not worth living. When he found Bucky again, in this space and time, he knew that this Bucky was different, new. This Bucky may never become the Bucky of his memory. Might not even be the Bucky after Zola’s prison camp. But Steve had to try. It was Bucky that thawed the ice of Steve’s memory and heart, and lessened the bad days Steve had. Traveling with Sam, following Bucky around the world, it was easier and easier to get up in the morning, easier to shake off the black and live in the here and now. And when he finally found Bucky – when Bucky finally _let_ himself be found, he knew that this was going to work.

First, of course, he needed to get Bucky out of Russia and back into the United States. He knew SHIELD could have done it, would have done it without questioning. Now, he knew that money still greased wheels, knew that he and Stark had parted tentative friends, knew that Stark had, a while back, offered all of them space in the new Avengers Tower. So he used their satellite phone and called a number he’d memorized back when Stark had given Steve his card.

Tony got all three of them back into the States, somehow managed to come up with, not only a room for Steve, but for Bucky and Sam, too. He casually offered to upgrade Sam to better tech – _‘seriously, Wilson, this model is two years old, you can’t work under conditions like that, let me tinker with it’_ – was stumped by Bucky’s arm but threw himself into figuring enough of it out that he could fix it if it messed up, came up with gym equipment that could withstand _Thor_ , let alone Steve and Bucky…

Tony opened his heart to them, even if it took Steve a while to see it.

Slowly, he and Tony drifted together. They worked together well – their synergy was almost on par with Natasha’s and Bucky’s, which was terrifying and amazing in and of itself – and Tony took Steve out to the little things. With Tony in his life, the bad days were pretty much a thing of history, and the ice in Steve’s shadow melted into spring.

_In the midst of all this darkness,_

_I sacrifice my ego._

 

“I saw what you did out there.”

Tony paused momentarily, hands still, and then he continued pouring whiskey into the wide-mouthed cup. “Oh? What did I do out there?”

“You, and that little kid on the edge of the crowd.”

That made Tony raise an eyebrow. Turning around to see Steve leaning against the doorframe, he sipped from the cup and hefted one shoulder. “I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“You were talking with that kid.”

“It’s a free country. I can talk to kids if I want,” Tony said, voice wry and laconic.

“You like to pretend you don’t care, but I see you, you know. We all do.”

Staring down at his drink, Tony shrugged with marked casualness. “And I see all of you, too.”

“Why you think you need to hide it is beyond me, really,” Steve murmured, and Tony hadn’t heard him move but suddenly Steve was there, against Tony’s back. He put a careful hand on Tony’s shoulder, rubbed soothingly against the aching joint. With a sigh, Tony gave in and leaned against Steve’s chest, absently swirling his drink in his cup.

“I’m not—” Tony began, and then he stopped. “You hide it too. You don’t think I notice when we’re out and you quietly deal with – with helping little old ladies across the street?”

“Hey, that was once, and she was blind!” Steve defended.

Tony shrugged again, Steve’s warmth seeping into his bones, making it easier to let his eyes fall halfway closed and forget about the day. It hadn’t even really been something they needed to take care of; it was nothing more than a mundane apartment fire, only Tony’s eyes had been drawn to a kid on the sidelines. Most people, when they watched them work, they were excited, or angry, or civilians who were placed out of the way. This kid was soot-singed, as if he’d been in the building, but he also had a black eye and rounded shoulders, a defeated air about him, and Tony had walked over – in his suit – and made as if he was pushing the crowd back before kneeling by the kid’s side.

He talked with that kid a bit, made absent mention to the cops, took a flyer down from a nearby pole and scratched out a toy the kid could build – that could double as a slingshot for the bullies his parents didn’t seem to notice or care about. He also let the kid know that he could visit the Avengers Tower if the kid built the toy and showed it to the front desk.

“I’m just saying – people love you, Tony. They love the man inside the suit as much as they love the suit.”

Tony huffed but didn’t voice his disagreement.

“I’m serious – _Tony_ ,” Steve said, turning Tony around to face him. With a sigh, Tony opened his eyes fully and met Steve’s eager gaze, soft and hopeful. “You did good. You do good. All the time. And – and letting stories like this go on only harms you.”

“I don’t need to be loved to do my job, Steve,” Tony said, knowing exactly what story Steve was talking about – all the conservative pundits, and even one or two of the left, were talking about how Iron Man swept in at the last minute to save the day and steal the limelight. “Sometimes… being a hero can mean having others place you on a pedestal, and failing high expectations. You know all about that.”

Steve winced, and Tony knew that was an underhanded lob, something he wouldn’t have done if Steve wasn’t getting too close with his words, too knowing. He wanted to take it back – but he wanted Steve to stop harping on this more.

Then Steve shook his head, squaring his shoulders. “No, you know what? I do know about that. I’ve had that happen to me even before I woke up in this century, and it sucks. But I – you need to move from it. You can’t take that to heart, because that’s not _you_.”

“I have a whole slew of reporters who’ll tell you a leopard can’t change his spots,” Tony murmured. “And I’m never going to change their minds.”

“You don’t have to change their minds. _I_ don’t have to change their minds, though I wish I could.” Steve leaned down, rested his forehead against Tony’s. “I want to change _your_ mind. Because you believe them, and you’re more than that. More than what they paint you out to be.”

“I’m not, really.”

“And Bruce is just a monster, right? A home for a slavering beast? Bucky’s going to turn on us at a moment’s notice? And Natasha, oh, the papers really don’t like her. She’s going to double-cross us. She’s selling your suit and my blood and half of New York to the North Koreans, right?”

Tony felt his mouth tug into a crooked grin. “Your Brooklyn accent is adorable.”

“You’re _mine_ , Tony. Not the papers. You aren’t selfish, you don’t make things worse, you’re a goddamned hero and I won’t let you speak badly about my boyfriend,” Steve said fiercely.

Tony let Steve wrap arms around him and breathed in the deep of sweat and leather and musk. “Okay, hotshot. You win,” he murmured.

_There ain’t no room for selfish –_

_We do it for the people._


End file.
